The Definitive Business Plan: The fast-track to intelligent business planning for executives and entrepreneurs, Second Edition

Chapter 3. Getting down to it

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• Why?

• When you don’t want to be a big fish

• What to do if you have several businesses

• Your list of contents

• The executive summary

• The conclusion

• Responsibilities – and the timetable

• Be a SWOT

• Where now?

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“Always tell them three times. First tell them what you are going to tell them. Then tell it to them. Then tell them what it was that you have just told them.”

The quote on the opposite page is valuable. It sensibly recommends that if you have something to say, you should state it three times. In this chapter, at last, you really get down to writing the plan. And you give your audience your message twice, in your first drafts of the executive summary and the conclusion. The third telling is covered in the ...